Chapter 152
The next morning, the cobblestone streets of the noble district rumbled under the wheels of heavy wagons. One by one, the three guilds arrived at the Rothchester estate, their banners swaying proudly above laden carts. East Lazarus Guild brought sleek battle wagons reinforced with steel plating, their swordsmen and scouts perched like hawks along the sides.
High Strategy Guild's convoy was a marvel of order, every crate cataloged, every potion vial packed with precision, their men and women moving with disciplined efficiency. White Devil Guild came last, their formation hard and severe, bearing armaments forged for brutal combat tower shields, greatswords, and enchanted crossbows gleaming in the morning light.
The open courtyard of the Duchess' mansion filled with noise and motion as nearly three hundred guild members assembled, their armor clinking, their voices rising in anticipation. Supplies were offloaded, checked, and stacked in neat lines. Warhorses stamped nervously, sensing the energy in the air.
Daniel stepped forward, the golden-blue of his heterochromatic eyes catching every gaze. He looked nothing like a pampered noble, though the crest of Rothchester adorned his cloak. There was something tempered about him, something forged by hardship. The courtyard quieted as he raised his hand.
"Three guilds, three strengths now gathered as one." His voice carried across the courtyard with calm authority. "The road ahead is broken, but not impassable."
Charlotte Lazarus leaned close to Mary Kay, whispering just low enough for her fellow guildmaster to hear. "He speaks as if the path were already cleared."
Mary Kay gave the barest nod. "Wait."
Daniel drew in a steady breath. The air around him shimmered faintly, as though heat rose from invisible fire. He began to chant words older than kingdoms, syllables that bent the silence into a hum of power. The earth itself trembled.
From the courtyard's far end, light surged upward, twisting into a vast circle of runes etched in pure radiance. Glyphs rotated like living gears, layers upon layers of arcane script locking into place. A pillar of blue-white energy burst skyward, then spread outward into a gate large enough for the guilds' battle wagons to pass through.
Gasps and murmurs filled the air. Even the most seasoned mages among the guilds faltered, their jaws slack.
"A teleportation gate…" whispered one. "But the mana cost"
"is impossible for a single caster," another finished.
And yet, Daniel stood steady, his cloak whipping in the torrent of energy, his mismatched eyes gleaming as if the spell was second nature to him.
The Duchess watched with a cool, unreadable expression, though her gaze flickered with pride. Sylveth Melriel's lips curved faintly, her knowing smile hidden beneath the shadow of her hood.
"Move," Daniel commanded. "One by one. Take your wagons through."
The first caravan entered the gate, swallowed in light, then emerged on the far side of the gorge. Shouts of awe echoed back as they realized the impossible: the mile-wide chasm that had long divided the noble district from the frontier lands was simply… gone. Where once weeks of detours had been required, now the road stretched unbroken, as though the gorge had never existed.
Guild members poured through, their amazement giving way to hushed respect. For years, stories had spread that the young Rothchester lord had survived alone in that gorge for eighteen years. None had believed them fully, until now. To endure such a place, to emerge with such power… perhaps it was no wonder Netherborn had chosen him as a disciple.
Charlotte's hand tightened unconsciously around the strap of her dagger. Eighteen years in that place? No man should have lived. And yet he stands before us, wielding power that rivals archmages.
Mary Kay's eyes lingered on him, her mind calculating, dissecting. Not just survival. Mastery. Perhaps the gorge did not break him it refined him. But refined into what?
On the far side of the gate, guild banners rose high, snapping in the wind. For the first time in memory, the three guilds stood side by side, united under a single banner—not their own, but the crest of Rothchester.
And at the center of it all stood Daniel, no longer merely a noble's son, but something far greater: a benefactor, a leader, and perhaps the harbinger of a story yet unwritten.
The moment the guilds passed through the shimmering gate, the air changed.
A horizon of wilderness spread before them ashen grass bending under winds that carried the scent of metal and rain, scattered ruins half-buried in the soil like bones of an older age, and mountains in the distance streaked with glowing veins of minerals that pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat beneath stone. The gorge that once divided their world from this frontier had become nothing more than a faint scar behind them.
Three hundred hunters, mercenaries, and awakened humans from the three guilds stood shoulder to shoulder, their voices hushed. The ground underfoot hummed faintly as if the very earth recognized the weight of their step. And at the head of them all, Daniel, Rothchester's son, stood calm with his mismatched eyes glinting.
A younger guild member nervous, awe still plain on his face finally broke the silence.
"Lord Rothchester… h-how could you cast such a gate? Not even the Crescent Magus herself could do this without preparation."
Daniel turned his gaze on him. Instead of answering with power, he slowly reached inside his cloak and withdrew a crystal prism housed in runed silver. The artifact radiated mana so dense it made even seasoned adventurers' throats tighten.
"This," Daniel said softly, raising the artifact high enough for all to see, "is a high-tier teleportation focus. It has only one remaining use. I did not forge it—I claimed it. It is the last gift of survival, not of privilege."
Murmurs rippled through the ranks. The guild leaders themselves exchanged looks, recognizing the value of what he had just spent on their behalf.
Daniel's expression shifted as he tucked the artifact back into his cloak. His voice carried over the courtyard of silence:
"I am the disciple of the Netherborn, yes. But do not mistake my path as something I was merely handed. For eighteen years, I survived the gorge with nothing but instinct, will, and blood. My master taught me only how to shape what was already inside me—the chaos I swallowed in order to keep breathing."
He raised his left hand. Mana surged faintly, darker than shadow yet threaded with veins of golden light, like molten rivers winding through night. It was not pure mana—it was unstable, alive, yet Daniel commanded it with terrifying precision.
"My master… he is not of this world. And the title 'Netherborn' is not a name, but a burden. A disciple chosen to inherit a role in service to something far older than these towers or this land. If I stand here, it is because I was chosen to be what comes next."
The last words hung heavy:
"Chosen to become the next Netherborn."
The silence that followed was broken by a whisper that passed through the gathered hunters like a chill wind.
"God of Chaos Nether…"
Some said it in fear, others in awe. Even among the seasoned guild veterans, shoulders stiffened, and hands hovered closer to hilts and staves. They were not only stepping into a frontier; they were following a young lord who had walked with something they could barely comprehend.
The silence lingered like a drawn blade. Three hundred figures stood beneath the alien sky, their gazes fixed upon Daniel some wary, some reverent, some calculating. His words had cut deeper than the wind sweeping across the plain, leaving each guild to wrestle with its own doubts and loyalties.
The East Lazarus Guild were the first to move. Charlotte Lazarus lifted her chin, her dagger gleaming faintly at her hip as her guild formed in neat ranks behind her. Though her eyes never left Daniel's mismatched gaze, her expression was a mask of discipline. She had lived long enough to know that survival often demanded silence rather than challenge. Yet in her heart, unease simmered.
Dane's shadow lingered there, tied irrevocably to the boy who now stood before her, speaking of gods and chaos as if they were birthrights. Her people mirrored her restraint loyal enough to follow her lead, cautious enough to keep their hands close to steel.
The High Strategy Guild's reaction was quieter, but no less sharp. Mary Kay, their leader, folded her arms and studied Daniel with the detached gaze of a tactician weighing risk against reward. Her members, robed in muted tones and marked by the scrolls and charms they carried, looked at him not with fear but with calculation. To them, a disciple of the Netherborn was not just a danger it was an opportunity.
Chaos could be harnessed as well as feared, and if this young lord truly commanded a god's shadow, then aligning themselves properly could tilt the scales of the quest and beyond. Yet Mary Kay's eyes lingered longer than most. That resemblance again—Dane Lazarus's ghost staring through different-colored eyes. She said nothing, but her silence was heavy, deliberate.
The White Devil Guild, however, responded with something closer to awe. Natasha Sokolov, their vice-captain, smirked faintly, her pale eyes bright with a dangerous sort of fascination. She, like many awakened humans, was drawn to power not merely to serve it, but to test herself against it, to sharpen her edge. Her guild mirrored her energy: murmurs of admiration, even excitement, rippled through their ranks. To walk beneath a disciple of the Netherborn was not a weight to them, but a thrill. And if he was truly destined to inherit such a title, then standing in his shadow was a privilege. Perhaps even a wager worth risking.
The Duchess's retainers and the former NPCs of the tower, standing quietly at the edge of the gathering, said nothing. They did not flinch, nor murmur, nor trade glances. For them, the announcement was not revelation but confirmation. The Duchess herself had declared him son. The magic of law had sealed it. For those bound to the Rothchester crest, truth was not negotiable.
And beyond them all stretched the land itself vast, waiting, indifferent.
The frontier of Karion unfurled before their eyes as if eager to swallow their doubts and ambitions alike. To the west of the gorge lay a plain of ashen grass, tall and dry, swaying like brittle waves under the sharp wind.
The earth itself seemed scarred, littered with fragments of ruined stonework half-buried in moss, remnants of a civilization that had crumbled long before the tower claimed dominion. Strange ridges jutted from the land, serrated like the backs of buried beasts, and the mountains in the far distance burned faintly with veins of mineral fire, pulsing in irregular rhythm, as though the land itself breathed.
The sky of Karion was dimmer here, not night but never fully day, a strange veil of cloud and light that gave everything a pallid hue. Birds with wings too long for their bodies wheeled overhead in silent arcs, their shadows stretching across the grass.
Every sound the creak of wagon wheels, the shuffle of boots, the faint murmur of guild members felt dwarfed by the silence of the land.
Here, quests were no longer bound by the safe rules of the tower. Karion was not merely another hunting ground. It was a frontier claimed by desolation and the smell of death in the air, and now, by their footsteps the enemies numbering by the millions are aware of their presence.
The march into Karion was slow, not because of hesitation but because the land itself resisted their advance. The plain of ashen grass gave way to broken ground where the soil crumbled underfoot, revealing veins of black stone that pulsed faintly as if something poisonous seeped through the earth. Beyond that lay the swampland—an expanse that stretched wider than the eye could follow, a vast mire of stagnant pools, crooked trees, and fog that clung low to the ground. The air grew damp, heavy with the stink of rot, as though every breath carried the memory of things long dead.
The topography was unforgiving. Shallow ridges collapsed into sinkholes hidden beneath reeds, while knotted roots curled up from the ground like grasping hands. In places, the earth bled sulfur, staining the waters in sickly hues of yellow and green. Twisted cypress-like trees rose out of the mire, their branches bare, their bark slick with lichen, some hollowed through as if something had eaten them from the inside. The water that reflected their shapes was not water at all but a sluggish, tar-like surface that swallowed anything careless enough to step too deep.
A death-like aura hung over everything. It was not merely the smell or the sight but the weight pressing down on the soul, whispering to each adventurer that they had crossed into a cursed domain. Even the guild members—hardened hunters, strategists, and fighters, could feel their breath shorten, their grips tighten on weapon hilts. Karion did not welcome them. It measured them.
Daniel felt it most keenly. He could see the subtle distortion in the mana that hung in the air, thick and stagnant like a corrupted current. The swamp was a maze of "zones," invisible but layered—traps left behind by the system's old design. Back when this was nothing more than a virtual dungeon, clearing Karion had been time-consuming but never final. Players could throw themselves at its challenges, die, resurrect, and try again. The swamp had been frustrating, but not terrifying.
Now the stakes were different. Death here meant true loss. No respawns. No reattempts. One mistake could wipe out years of training and hope.
Daniel's mind flashed back to the evolve drake—the last great quest completed before this. That monster had been colossal, an apex beast whose very presence reshaped the battlefield. Yet for all its power, it had been singular. One enemy. One focal point. Clear enough to direct all strength against.
Karion was not like that.
The Empire of Graves awaited within its borders, and unlike the evolve drake, its defenders were not beasts. They were warriors. Undead, yes, but bound by memory, retaining the skills and abilities they had carried in life. Knights who had once wielded blades with precision now rose from their tombs with rusted steel still steady in their hands. Sorcerers who had long turned to dust could still shape fire, ice, and shadow with the echoes of their will. They were not mindless husks, but an army of the fallen trained, disciplined, merciless.
The guild members knew this. They had studied the fragments of records left behind by the advanced teams who had entered early. Whispers spread like wildfire as boots sank into the marsh: rumors of ghostly banners fluttering in the fog, of skeletal legions standing in perfect formations, of captains and generals who remembered every technique they had mastered in life.
Mary Kay's voice cut through the gloom as she led her guild over a rise of mud and stone. "Stay in formation. This land is alive with traps. Do not break lines, no matter what sound or shadow tempts you."
Charlotte Lazarus lifted her dagger, signaling for her guild to tighten their spacing. Her eyes narrowed at the mist rolling between the trees. "It feels like the swamp itself wants to pull us apart."
Natasha Sokolov, by contrast, smiled faintly as her boots sank ankle-deep into the mire. The White Devil Guild relished the suffocating pressure. To them, the dark aura was not merely a threat but a promise that something worth fighting waited ahead.
And at the center of them all was Daniel, walking with calm authority, his mismatched eyes glinting faintly against the pallid light. He alone knew how thin the line was between illusion and reality here. In the old world, this would have been just another "zone," a collection of coded hazards and scripted enemies. But now the code had teeth, the scripts had wills, and the cost of testing the swamp would be blood.
The swamp's silence broke at last.
Somewhere ahead, between the trees, came the first metallic echo, a clang of steel against steel, deliberate and slow, like a challenge struck against a shield. The guilds froze.
Then the mist parted. Figures emerged, armored in rust and bone, their hollow eyes burning faintly with pale fire. They stood in formation, shields locked, weapons lifted. Not beasts. Not monsters. Soldiers.
The first encounter of Karion had arrived.
The clang of steel grew louder as the mist peeled back, revealing a line of twenty armored figures advancing with the steady cadence of soldiers drilled for war. Their shields overlapped, their rusted swords drawn with crisp precision. At their head strode a Death Knight, his armor dark and pitted with age, yet still bearing the insignia of some forgotten house. His eyes glowed like twin coals, his gait measured, purposeful. He carried not only a blade but the weight of command, and the undead fell into step around him as if they had never left the battlefield of their last breath.
The swamp itself seemed to quiet in respect.
"Formation," Charlotte hissed. Her voice was sharp, calm, but her fingers flexed against her dagger. "They march like soldiers, not husks. Do not underestimate them."
The East Lazarus Guild tightened into two lines, blades gleaming despite the swamp's gloom. Their footing was light, trained for swift strikes and fast withdrawals.
"Front shield, rear mages," Mary Kay commanded in turn, her guild shifting with mechanical precision. The High Strategy Guild moved like a chessboard, every member falling into pre-assigned squares. The air around them shimmered faintly as buffs and wards layered over their formation.
Natasha Sokolov only smirked, drawing her curved sword as the White Devil Guild spread wide, their movements reckless but coordinated, eager to test themselves against real blood.
And Daniel—he only watched. Standing on a rise of stone just above the marsh, his mismatched eyes followed the Death Knight's every step. He did not move to intervene. He wanted to see how the guilds fared when faced with discipline, not chaos.
The clash came sudden and brutal.
The undead soldiers slammed their shields down with a roar of metal, a wall of rust and bone surging forward. The sound was deafening, a rhythm that crushed hesitation. When they struck, it was with precision—shields bashing, blades thrusting in perfect synchronization, not a step wasted.
Charlotte was the first to meet them. Her dagger flashed low, slipping between shield gaps to find a joint of armor. She ducked a counterstrike, rolled, and called her guild into flanking motion. East Lazarus struck like daggers in the dark—swift, surgical strikes aimed at weak points, always retreating before the shields could close around them.
Mary Kay's guild moved differently. Where East Lazarus danced, High Strategy rooted. Their shieldbearers held the line with grim determination, warded by layers of reinforcement magic, while their spellcasters unleashed coordinated volleys—bolts of fire searing through gaps, binding spells freezing sword arms mid-swing. Every move was planned, every risk calculated.
The White Devil Guild hit hardest. Natasha herself carved through the left flank with feral grace, her curved sword sparking against rusted armor, each strike calculated not to kill quickly but to shatter rhythm. Her guild followed, reckless but devastating, breaking formation only to reform just as fast, leaving the undead struggling to adapt.
Yet the undead did adapt.
Every strike the guilds landed was answered with counterpressure, shields closing, blades thrusting in unison. An East Lazarus scout cried out as a spear nearly skewered his leg—only for Charlotte to drag him free with a precise strike that severed the undead's wrist. A White Devil bruiser was nearly gutted by a flanking sword—saved only by a freezing bind cast from Mary Kay's mages.
"Gods," one whispered amid the clash, sweat streaming down his temple. "They're fighting like they remember everything."
"They do," Mary Kay muttered, her eyes never leaving the Death Knight at the center. "These aren't beasts. This is an army that never forgot how to march."
The Death Knight moved at last. He lifted his blade, the blackened steel groaning with weight, and brought it down upon the front line. The ground itself shook as the strike cleaved a shield in half, the High Strategy bearer thrown back into the mud. The undead roared in unison and pressed harder, their commander's presence sharpening their cohesion.
For a heartbeat, the guilds faltered.
Then Daniel's voice cut through the clash, calm but cold. "Do not fight them as monsters. Fight them as soldiers. Break their lines, take their flanks, disrupt their rhythm."
The guilds shifted, almost unconsciously obeying. East Lazarus widened their strikes, aiming not for kills but for disruption—cutting straps, breaking shields, staggering the formation. High Strategy focused fire, isolating pockets of the undead, turning their discipline into a cage. White Devil pressed every staggered gap, their reckless strikes now falling like hammers on fractured iron.
The tide turned.
One by one, the undead fell. Not in chaotic collapse but in grim defiance, each cut down still fighting as if their general's will bound them tighter than death. Finally only the Death Knight remained, his armor cracked, his blade chipped, yet his stance unbroken. He swung once more, knocking two fighters sprawling, before Charlotte's dagger pierced the seam of his helm and Mary Kay's Earth ability held the enemy tightly.
The Death Knight fell to one knee, his burning eyes dimming. He looked not at his killers but at Daniel, standing untouched upon the rise. For an instant, it seemed as if recognition flickered in the dying glow, then the light went out, and the swamp swallowed the silence again.
No guild member had fallen. Not yet. But the lesson was clear:
They were not fighting a dungeon. They were at war with an army of the dead.
The swamp gave no time to breathe.
As the Death Knight's body slumped into the mire, the ground beneath them quivered. Mud bubbled, water curdled, and the black soil split with a wet tearing sound. Pale, skeletal hands clawed upward, dragging new corpses from the earth—soldiers in rusted mail, their hollow eyes flaring awake with pale fire. Twenty-one more, arranged as if they had been waiting beneath the mud for centuries.
The guilds cursed under their breath, blades rising again. But this time, the Lazarus line stepped forward as one.
Mary Kay, her shovel glimmering faintly with earthlight, slammed the flat of it against the ground. The swamp's floor trembled, rising in jagged ridges that staggered the advancing undead. "Cores," she barked, her voice sharp. "Strike for the cores—they're no longer in their hearts. They move!"
Beside her, Bonnie's eyes glowed faintly violet as she lifted both hands. Gravity thickened around the nearest cluster of undead, dragging them to their knees. Armor groaned under the unseen weight, their movements slowed to half-speed.
"Now!"
Cody answered first. His staff arced forward, unleashing a wide shockwave of raw force that blasted through the slowed line, cracking joints and rattling skulls. The undead stumbled, staggered, exposing faint gleams—tiny marbles of black energy pulsing within ribs, skulls, even wrists.
Maggie darted past him, her body wreathed in slicing currents of wind. She twisted through a pair of armored husks, blades of air peeling back rust to reveal the glimmering spheres inside. Her strikes were clean, each undead collapsing into ash as the cores shattered.
Flames lit the swamp. Sophia and Emma, the fire-arrow twins, moved in eerie unison. Each loosed shafts of flame that split mid-flight, pinning undead to trees, striking into eye sockets and ribcages where cores pulsed. Screams not of pain but of rupture rang out as the fire consumed their energy, leaving blackened shells to crumble into sludge.
From the front, Charlotte Lazarus surged like fire itself, her sword-dagger igniting with a sheath of flame. She struck low, her blade slicing through shield edges, then snapped upward, stabbing directly into the skull of an undead captain. The fire detonated within, splintering the hidden core and leaving the corpse to collapse into cinders.
Behind her, Jacob raised both arms, molten streams spilling from his palms. Lava congealed into blazing spears that he hurled one after another. They struck like meteors, melting armor, cracking open ribcages until the glowing cores within burst like fragile glass.
Oliver moved with more subtlety. His arrows carried venom thick enough to eat through metal. He loosed three in quick succession, each shaft whistling into a corpse's chest, dissolving armor until the marble-sized orbs were laid bare. The next volley shattered them, leaving hollow husks to collapse into the muck.
Farrah whispered into the air, her hands brushing against the swamp reeds. Vines erupted, slick with mud, coiling around three undead at once. Thorns pierced armor gaps, seeking the cores within like hunters, until the bodies shook violently and fell still.
Rainey's swarm came next. Insects poured from a pouch at her belt, black clouds that buzzed with unnatural coordination. They swarmed over an undead soldier, vanishing into its open helm. A second later, its chest bulged, cracked, and the insects carried the shattered orb out like a prize before the corpse collapsed.
Sabine shifted, her body folding into the form of a massive wolf. She leapt high, jaws clamping onto an undead's neck, tearing through steel and bone until her fangs ground against the core itself. With a snap, the orb cracked, and the body fell limp beneath her weight.
Noah, his skin gleaming like forged steel, waded into the thick of the line. Blades clanged harmlessly against him as he drove his fist through an undead's torso, seizing the orb with his bare hand. He crushed it in his palm, the shards scattering like dark sand before he hurled the husk aside.
Together, the Lazarus line fought not like adventurers but like a storm—each strike purposeful, each ability a piece of the whole.
Still, the undead pressed. Their Death Knight commander roared, its voice shaking the swamp like thunder. It swung its blade in wide arcs, forcing three guild fighters back. Its armor was thicker, its movements were sharper, and its core was hidden deeper, pulsing faintly within its spine.
Mary Kay caught sight of it and shouted, "Focus! The knight's core sits in the back—low spine! Distract it, force it to overreach!"
Charlotte dashed in, her blade striking high to draw its attention. Natasha from the White Devil guild slipped from the flank, parrying a downward slash that would have split Charlotte in two. At the same time, Jacob hurled a molten spear that struck the Death Knight's shield, staggering it back half a step.
That half-step was all Cody needed. His shockwave roared again, bending the knight's body forward for a breath.
"Noah!"
The steel-skinned warrior lunged, his fist driving into the knight's lower back. The impact rang like a bell, cracks spreading through the dark plate until the faint light of the core shone through. In an instant, Sophia and Emma's arrows struck, twin shafts of fire piercing the fracture.
The Death Knight convulsed. Its blade rose once more, as if to strike, then fell uselessly into the mud as its core shattered, exploding in a storm of pale fire.
Silence fell once more.
The swamp stank of ash and rot. The corpses of their enemies melted into black sludge, leaving only fragments of shattered cores scattered in the muck. The guilds stood breathing hard, their weapons dripping with grime, but not a single one of them had fallen.
For now.
Daniel stood above them still, arms folded, his golden-blue gaze unreadable. He had not moved once, but he had seen enough. The swamp of Karion was not a test of strength alone. It was a war of endurance, and this was only the opening move.
The swamp churned and twisted as though it were alive, its boggy earth bubbling with foul gases and the heavy mists curling into shapes that resembled skeletal hands reaching from the mire. The first clash with the undead should have been victory enough, yet the land itself betrayed them, birthing new soldiers of bone and rotted flesh from the soil they marched upon.
The Empire of Graves was no longer distant lore; it was breathing around them, pulling them deeper.
The Lazarus guild and its affiliates tightened their formation, their battle lines braced for the renewed assault. But before the second wave could overwhelm them, shadows cut through the mist, figures marching with precision, their voices sharp and firm. The White Devil Guild had arrived.
Vice Captain Natasha Sokolov stood at the forefront, her crossbow already brimming with frost-laced energy. She carried herself with icy calm, her pale blue eyes narrowing as she raised her weapon. One squeeze of the trigger and a bolt of ice exploded into a storm, freezing three lunging undead mid-motion before their brittle forms shattered under the weight of their own bodies.
"Lazarus! With us!" she commanded, her Russian accent crisp but commanding.
The White Devil guild fell into motion like a well-oiled war machine. Ioakim's explosion magic tore holes in the advancing lines, chunks of burning bone scattering across the swamp. Fedorov's acid hissed as it melted through the armor of a death knight, exposing the marble-sized core buried in its ribcage. Stepan's water arrows sang like steel darts, piercing with mechanical precision, while Petrov unleashed a rain of fire bullets to finish what his comrades weakened.
Electric bursts from Dmitriev lit the fog with violent arcs, momentarily stunning undead into immobility, just long enough for Borislav's poison mist to corrode their cores. Mikhaylov's paralyzing magic rooted the soldiers in place, leaving them helpless before the onslaught of blades, arrows, and spells.
Behind the front lines, the support division moved like lifelines holding the guilds together. Tamara's hands glowed with soothing warmth as she kept fighters standing, while Mariya's curse magic laced the battlefield, weakening the undead's movements and dulling their strength. Fedorova's ide-magic bent the swamp's very air, disrupting hostile spells before they could touch their allies.
Then came the steel and blood. Radinka's axe cleaved through two undead in one swing, the wet crack of bone echoing like a drumbeat. Kuzmina's beast-shapeshifting tore another limb from limb, claws ripping away until the hidden core spilled free. Nataliya's sword moved in graceful arcs, severing joints with precise economy, while Aleksandrova's arrows rained death from the mist. Irinushka's musket roared, every shot a mix of gunpowder and magic that split skulls open cleanly, exposing glowing cores for the guild to shatter.
The Lazarus guild fought shoulder to shoulder with them, weaving their styles together seamlessly. Mary Kay's earth shovels tore open sinkholes beneath enemy ranks, dropping them into pits where Bonnie's gravity manipulation crushed them flat. Charlotte's fire blade struck in burning streaks, while Jacob's magna-lava erupted to coat undead in molten death. Oliver's poisoned bolts sank deep, ensuring their prey didn't rise again.
Together, Lazarus and White Devil formed a warfront that felt unstoppable, their coordination minimizing loss even as the swamp continued to vomit forth its endless army. Still, even amidst the flashes of victory, the air grew heavier, the cursed aura pressing down like a weight on the lungs, as if the land itself resented their defiance.
And above it all, Daniel stood back on a rise of stone, his arms folded, eyes glowing faintly in the fog. He did not intervene only watched. His silence unnerved some, but his presence steadied others. To the guild members, it was as if he were testing them, measuring their worth in a place where survival was no longer guaranteed.
The battle was far from over. The swamp had only opened its gates. Beyond it, the true heart of the Empire of Graves pulsed like a black star, drawing them ever closer.